Product Reviews

Epson's Stylus Photo inkjets have been earning rave reviews for years, as they've consistently produced great quality photos despite a low price tag. It's these traits that earned the Stylus Photo 790 a place in our Top 50, so we were eager to see if its replacement, the Stylus Photo 810, could continue in a similar vein.

We're certainly not critical of this printer's price. At £115 including tax, it's one of the most affordable inkjets around. Thankfully, the low price isn't reflected in below-par photos. Using every microscopic dot of this inkjet's 2880x720 resolution, and Epson's own glossy photograph paper, a full A4 photo emerged after 13 minutes. It was definitely worth the wait, with natural colours matched by superb detail.

The Photo 810 even allows edge-to-edge printing for that high street developer look, and you can choose from a variety of paper sizes, including 6x4in. Edge-to-edge printing comes courtesy of Epson's own PhotoQuicker 3 application, which is described by the Japanese firm as 'easy to use'. Hmm. Although it looks pretty, its mechanics are annoyingly clunky. For starters, you'll have to browse through a Windows Explorer-style menu to even find your photos, and you may then discover that you have to rotate them in another photo-editing program to make them fit nicely on the page. Nevertheless, edge-to-edge printing is a great feature that adds another string to this inkjet's already strong bow.

Another potentially useful feature is Epson's own PIM (Print Image Matching) technology. If you have a suitably equipped digital camera, this matches up the colours to produce highly accurate colour tones. It's a nice idea, and surprisingly enough it even works well in practice.

Where the 810 starts to fall down is if you move away from photo printing to more mundane tasks. So long as you choose best quality and decent paper, it performs well, but

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its nadir came when printing ordinary text on plain paper in draft mode. It's a mistake you'll only make once. Even in normal mode, there's too much bleed around the letters to cause HP concern that it might lose its all-rounder crown. It's a similar story with solid graphics - choose best quality and Epson's own-brand paper and you'll be pleased with the results, but on plain paper in normal mode it's nothing special.

Of course, the problem with higher quality settings is increased printing time: our newsletter only emerged after seven minutes when printed on coated paper at 1440dpi, and to get similar results to the DeskJet 960C (reviewed opposite) for our report we had to wait nine minutes. With a wait of 30 seconds per page for a standard letter - upped to two minutes if you choose quality over speed - the 810 makes HP's DeskJet look like a 40 page per minute laser printer.

Epson could also learn some ergonomic lessons from HP, with the 810 just a little too loud for comfort. The input and output trays also feel on the flimsy side, with the lack of support meaning paper will bend if left in either tray for too long. Another potential problem stems from the printer's driver, which becomes difficult to negotiate as soon as you decide you don't want the default 'Speed' or 'Quality' settings. Having said this, Epson does provide a remarkably large degree of control, so once you grasp its particular way of thinking you'll be able to perfectly match the level of quality you want with the task in hand.

The control panel has a handy graphical guide to ink cartridge levels, and it was great to see a spare colour and black cartridge in the box. However, you'll need the colour one quite quickly - with an estimated life of 220 pages (at 25 per cent coverage), these cartridges aren't quite as cavernous as those from HP. On the other hand, each black cartridge costs £20 and lasts for 540 pages, working out at a more reasonable 3.7p per page.

So should you buy this printer? If you want an inkjet for frequent use that can cope with anything you throw at it, HP's DeskJet 960C is worth the extra money - the 810 simply takes too long if you're after quality. But if you're looking for an occasional-use inkjet that will mainly be used for printing photos, then the answer is a resounding yes. The results are simply superb and the edge-to-edge feature is a huge bonus. Put together, these qualities are just enough to earn the Photo 810 a place in our hallowed Top 50.